This is the last collection of the old Star Wars newspaper comics, and as the title indicates, it's largely concerned with the Rebellion fleeing Yavin IV for Hoth.

What bothered me here was when Darth Vader uses a cybernetic link to extend his Force abilities, that ain't him. Sucking Luke's life energy to make herself young and beautiful again? What is this, TROS (with a lil more misogyny)? The final arc features a couple returning scoundrels (hey Skorr) and an encore performance from the green splotchy tube worm that plays all the monsters in this series. The rest of the stories get into the pulp gutter in a far more egregious way than the previous volumes.

Similarly vapid but a high point for the volume I guess. I liked the solar flare escape scene, reminded me of the ambush of the Rebel fleet in the new Marvel Star Wars line. He acts like a straight-up traitor, until the moment when he has to reveal to Luke that he's merely a coward, at which point Luke has a brief conversation that, somehow, totally changes his mind and lets him sacrifice himself in a way that, somehow, Luke manages to turn into what is apparently a success in their mission, though there are no consequences that make a lot of sense (why did they not need plans this time?). Good enough, something we maybe don't have enough of even lately (Finn's cowardice in TFA is the closest and look at the empathy and interest and development that gets). It's trying to be a story about how General Dodonna's son deserts the Rebels because he's become fatalistic about the Empire's victory and fearful of their retaliation personally. It's not at all ambitious, or unusual, really, and yet it still falls so far outside the bounds of what Goodwin's narrative chops can handle that it feels almost bizarre. The Vard arc, started in vol 2 but finishing here, is one of the most uncanny storylines I've found in a comic.

Classic star wars dark horse